Maintaining the underutilized Lycoming County Pre-Release Center (PRC), a subject that has come up before, was again addressed at this month’s Prison Board meeting when Commissioner Mark Mussina asked if an increase in the center’s usage was possible in the future. The answer from President Judge Nancy L. Butts was “yes.”

She explained that they are instituting a new way of reassessing individuals in the county prison to determine if they meet a safety and security risk in order to shift them over to the Pre-Release Center. Once they are moved to the PRC, they can take advantage of training and educational programming and counseling, Butts said.

Shifting people would not only increase the population at the PRC, which had a total of 30 males and 6 females during February, but would also free up beds at the prison.

“It would make beds available here if the county wanted to increase their contract with the federal government with the US Marshals,” Butts said, speaking at the meeting which was held at the prison.

Lycoming County Commissioner Scott Metzger, who is also a member of the Prison Board, has pointed out several times during the last year that it costs $2 million to maintain the PRC facility. He has stated that there has to be some way to increase the usage at PRC. In the past, two possible uses-juvenile detention and mental health-were offered as solutions.

In his report to the board, Brad Shoemaker, warden, noted that the average daily population at the Prison was running a little ahead of the total for January with about seven inmates more per day.

The mental health snapshot taken at the prison last week revealed that in a population of 112 males the three females, 41.67 percent were Roster A, which is with no mental health history; while 20.29 percent were Roster B with past mental health history, but no active symptoms in the last year; 33.69 percent were Roster C, which is current or history of psychotropic medications, outpatient counseling, psychiatric hospitalizations and self-harm/suicide attempts; and 4.35 percent on Roster D, which is having serious mental issues.

It was reported that four of six counselors have completed Crisis Intervention Training (CIT).

The goal of crisis intervention is to intervene with someone who has mental health issues to keep from incarcerating them and to see what alternatives are available for them at the time of their arrest to keep them from coming to county prisons, Shoemaker said.

“We’ve been lucky to have are co-responders that are embedded, one with the city and one with Lycoming Regional (Police), so that even some of the smaller municipalities know that they have them and if they have a challenging situation where they know the person needs help but they don’t know who to call or where to refer them to, they reach out now to the co-responders,” Butts said.

“Just to be able to educate law enforcement it has caused certain situations where the default position of the police was, well we know how to solve this problem, we’re just going to find a charge and arrest him and we’re going to put him in jail. Now, some people are actually getting the help that they need so that they’re deflected completely from the criminal justice system or maybe they’re charged, but they don’t go to jail if they accomplish certain goals, the charges will be dismissed against them,” she said, adding “We’ve got the possibility of maybe even piloting something very small to incorporate all these new tools we’re developing, in the community.”

She noted that Penn College uses de-escalation techniques when dealing with students.

“College is stressful. Now you’ve introduced maybe alcohol or controlled substances. We’re seeing more and more individuals in that early 20’s, late 20’s, developing schizophrenia, which is the target time for that,” Butts said.

“Sometimes the only time anybody discovers that is when they’re in custody. So, we’re just trying to do a better job in the community of becoming more aware of what the resources are and trying to address the problem and not the circumstances that are created as a consequence of the problem,” she said.

The next Prison Board meeting will be at 8:30 a.m. April 11, at the Commissioners’ Board Room, 3rd floor, Third Street Plaza, 33 W. Third St.